external hard drives and pda's

[bmary]

I'm looking into pcmcia hard drives for my soon to arrive ipaq sleeve. I'm toying with mounting my mono 3135 in my car as an mp3 jukebox and gps system.

Does anyone know if you can use external hard drives with pcmcia plugs (like they used to sell for notebooks) with a pda? A 5GB tohiba/kingston pcmcia drive will set me back $150, while I might be able to get something set up cheaper with an external box. Seeing as it would be in the car, the bulk/power wouldn't be much of an issue (probably).

On a low level, how does the pda deal with the hard disk access? Is there internal native driver support for the pcmcia types, or what? Do you need to load a driver specifically for the drive onto the pda?

Anyone try this or have any other thoughts?

[imported_Figment]

Hello,

The information you're looking for is on the IPAQ Storage Brick site:

http://www.tjotala.com/hardware/stor...ck/default.htm

"A 5GB tohiba/kingston pcmcia drive will set me back $150, while I might be able to get something set up cheaper with an external box."

You can go bigger...alot bigger...IBM Travelstar 80GN (max 80gigs) in an Addonics ExDrive casing w/PCMCIA cable.

It'll run about USD 75-100 for the casing and one type of cable.
Another USD 40-50 for an extra type of cable.
For example: casing w/PCMCIA + USB 2.0 cable
Harddrive cost'll depend on what model you decide.

Also, it's a good idea to suspension mount the casing to provide shock absorption for the harddrive.

Thomas

[bmhome1]

You can also pick up an IBM 8E TravelStar 8GB PCMCIA hard drive (as mentioned in the StorageBrick article) on ebay for $65-100 complete. It also features very heavily shock protection padding ideal for an auto.

[imported_Figment]

Hello,

While we're on the subject of pda storage, Hitachi took over IBM's hard drive division, which includes its microdrive technology. They've got a 4gig version out for industry testing atm, consumer release ~fall/03.

Source: Tom's Hard News

http://www.tomshardware.com/technews/20030107.html

Thomas

[bmary]

Excellent, thanks a lot. I'll have to look it over carefully and see if it's really the way to go, but it's certainly what I had in mind.

There's a lot to be said for the pcmcia drive, it's real easy to remove the whole thing from the vehicle (since it comes out with the pda) and bring it inside to upload new music or maps. The external solution kind of begs for a more permanent mounting, making it more difficult to update. Guess I could put wifi in the car....

Anyway, I'll check out this info. Seemed like the big problem would be a driver issue, but it seems like Tapani has that covered. I'll let you know how it goes.

[bmary]

bmhome1 - Would you happen to know if the IBM 8E works with the storage brick drivers? It would be a good all-in-one solution, since it includes the case and pcmcia adapter.